About
The U.S. National Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (USNC/TAM), on behalf of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine invites recent graduates who obtained their PhD degree in the United States, and defended their dissertation between July 20, 2024 and July 19, 2025, to virtually present a concise summary of their PhD thesis to a mechanics audience. The competition will allow new scholars to showcase their research and findings to a broader audience. The subject must be in a mechanics related area, including theoretical, experimental, and computational methods. Mechanics, including computational mechanics, is a science that combines mathematics, physics, and engineering to provide mathematical statements to describe the behavior of fluids, materials and structures.
To determine eligibility to THE USNC/TAM 5MT, the applicants must use the application form starting on Friday, June 27, 2025 (at 4PM ET) and ending on Friday, August 8 (now August 22), 2025 (at 4 PM ET). Once notified, to be accepted in the competition, eligible applicants must submit a recorded video presentation that is no longer than five minutes. Additional instructions will be provided in the notification email.
Notified applicants are invited to upload a video of their presentation using the link included in their eligibility email starting Friday, July 11, 2025 (at 12 PM ET). Submissions will no longer be accepted after Friday, August 15 (now August 29), 2025 (at 4 PM ET), or after 100 video submissions have been received, whichever comes first.
Finalists were invited to present in a livestreamed webinar with the following results:
FIRST PRIZE: ($2,000)
Dr. Caleb Foster
Texas A&M University
"Strategies for Incormoprating Micro-Computed Tomography into Homogenized Ductile Damage Models"
SECOND PRIZE: ($1,500)
Dr. Atalaya Milan Wilborn
Harvard University
"Ambidirectional Liquid Crystal Elastomers: Opposite Deformations Designed Across Length Scales"
THIRD PRIZE & PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD: ($1,000; $500)
Dr. Houlin Xu
Northwestern University
"Computational and Statistical Innovations in Structural Failure Analysis: Sprain Energy Theory and Fishnet Probability Modeling"
2025 – COMPETITION TIMELINE (all times are ET)
Friday, June 27, 4 PM: Application submissions OPEN.
Friday, July 11, 12 PM: Video submissions OPEN (to notified applicants).
Friday, August 8 (now August 22), 4 PM: Application submissions CLOSE.
Friday, August 15 (now August 29), 4 PM: Video submissions CLOSE.
Friday, September 12, 12 PM: Top 10 finalists notified.
The USNC/TAM 5MT Virtual Thesis Competition and Awards Ceremony:
Friday, September 26, 3-5 PM
Webcast
Materials
Contact
Disclaimer
It is essential to the National Academies mission of providing evidence-based advice that participants in any of our meetings or events avoid political or partisan statements or commentary and maintain a culture of mutual respect. The statements and presentations during our meetings or events are solely those of the individual participants and do not necessarily represent the views of other participants or the National Academy of Sciences, which is a non-partisan, tax exempt organization that includes under its Charter the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine, and that operates the National Research Council.